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Across Sweden, approximately 70 automotive mechanics persist to challenge among the globe's wealthiest corporations – the electric vehicle manufacturer. The industrial action at the American automaker's 10 Scandinavian service centers has currently entered its second anniversary, and there is little sign for a settlement.

Janis Kuzma has been on the Tesla picket line starting from October 2023.

"It's a tough time," remarks the worker in his late thirties. With Sweden's cold seasonal conditions arrives, it is expected to grow even tougher.

The mechanic devotes each Monday with a colleague, positioned outside a Tesla garage on an industrial park in Malmö. The labor organization, the Swedish metalworkers' union, provides accommodation via a mobile construction vehicle, plus coffee & light meals.

But it's operations continue normally nearby, at which the service facility appears to operate in full swing.

The strike involves an issue that goes to the core of Swedish industrial culture – the right of trade unions to negotiate wages & working terms representing their workforce. This concept of negotiated labor contracts has supported labor dynamics in Sweden for almost a century.

Currently approximately seventy percent of Scandinavia's employees are members to labor organizations, while ninety percent are covered under negotiated labor contracts. Labor stoppages in Sweden are rare.

It's a system supported by all parties. "We favor the ability to bargain directly with worker representatives and sign labor contracts," states Mattias Dahl of the Confederation of Swedish Businesses employer group.

However Tesla has disrupted the apple cart. Vocal chief executive Elon Musk has said he "opposes" with the idea of labor organizations. "I simply disapprove of anything which creates a kind of lords and peasants situation," he told listeners in New York in 2023. "I think labor groups try to create conflict within businesses."

The automaker entered the Scandinavian market starting in the mid-2010s, and IF Metall has for years wanted to secure a labor contract with the automaker.

"But they did not respond," says the union president, the organization's president. "We formed the belief that they tried to hide away or not discuss the matter with us."

She states the organization eventually found no alternative than to call industrial action, beginning on 27 October, 2023. "Usually the threat suffices to issue a warning," comments Ms Nilsson. "The company usually signs the contract."

However this did not happen in this case.

The striking mechanic, who is from Latvia, started working for Tesla several years ago. He asserts that wages and conditions were often subject to the whim of managers.

He remembers a performance review at which he states he was refused an annual pay rise because that he "failing to meet Tesla's goals". Meanwhile, a coworker was said to be rejected for a pay rise due to having the "wrong attitude".

Nevertheless, not everyone went out in the industrial action. The company had some 130 mechanics working when the strike was called. The union states currently approximately 70 of its members are participating in the action.

The automaker has long since replaced the striking workers with new workers, for which that has not occurred since the Great Depression.

"Tesla has accomplished this [found replacement staff] publicly and systematically," says German Bender, an analyst at a research institute, a policy organization financed by Scandinavian labor organizations.

"It's not illegal, which is crucial to recognize. However it goes against all traditional practices. Yet the company shows no concern about norms.

"They want to be norm breakers. Thus when somebody tells them, listen, you are violating a norm, they perceive this as praise."

The company's local division declined requests for interview via correspondence mentioning "all-time high vehicle shipments".

In fact, the automaker has given only one press discussion during the entire period after the industrial action began.

Earlier this year, the Swedish subsidiary's "national manager, the executive, told a business paper that it suited the company better to avoid a union contract, and rather "to collaborate directly with the team and give them optimal conditions".

Mr Stark rejected that the decision to avoid a labor contract was one made by US leadership in the US. "Our division possesses a mandate to make independent such decisions," he stated.

The union is not completely isolated in its fight. The strike has received backing from several of labor organizations.

Port workers in nearby Denmark, Nordic countries and Finland, decline to process the company's vehicles; waste is no longer collected from the automaker's Swedish facilities; while recently constructed charging stations are not being connected to the grid across the nation.

Exists an example near Stockholm Arlanda Airport, at which 20 chargers remain unused. However a Tesla enthusiast, the leader of enthusiasts group Tesla Club Sweden, states Tesla owners are unaffected by the labor dispute.

"There's another charging station 10km from this location," he says. "And we can continue to purchase vehicles, we can maintain our cars, we can power our electric cars."

With stakes significant for all parties, it's hard to see an end to the deadlock. IF Metall risks establishing a pattern should it surrender the fundamental concept of collective agreement.

"The worry is that that would spread," states Mr Bender, "and ultimately {erode